Chronic Migraine, Coping, Favorites

The Power & Strength of Vulnerability, Even in Illness

Just the thought of being vulnerable makes most people recoil. Open yourself  emotionally to the whims of others? No, thank you! But when you’re sick, you have no choice. You must rely on others to take care of you or the responsibilities you cannot deal with; you have to repeatedly reveal your deepest agonies to health care providers (who may not be understanding) and hope they’ll give you the treatment you need; you have to let others see you at your worst, when you have absolutely no strength to keep up airs.

The vulnerability inherent in illness feels like a weakness, when the truth is actually the exact opposite. Vulnerability is a sign of strength and courage, as well as a powerful tool that allows us to connect deeply to others and live wholeheartedly, according to the research of social work professor Dr. Brené Brown. Her TED talks provide an inspiring look at vulnerability and shame (another major emotional factor in chronic illness).

I highly recommend watching both. In The Power of Vulnerability, Brown discusses her research and personal aversion to vulnerability, as well as how important vulnerability is living fully. Listening to Shame addresses the power of vulnerability as well, but looks at the epidemic of shame in our culture and the difference between guilt and shame — an important distinction for those of us with chronic illness.

Brown’s talks aren’t proscriptive, but provide insight into the power and strength of vulnerability. Although I didn’t realize it, I’ve been applying the principles she discusses as I’ve become increasingly open about the true impact of chronic migraine on my life. In letting people see me when I was at my sickest, in reaching out for help when Hart and I were alone in a new city, in not hiding the magnitude of my pain or degree of disability from friends, my connections to others are so much deeper and richer than in all the years I tried desperately to pretend I wasn’t as sick as I am.

By trying to hide chronic migraine, I was putting a wall between myself and anyone who tried to connect with me. Because of my shame over being sick, I wasn’t living honestly or authentically. No one could know me, not even myself. It’s not coincidental that I lost my sense of identity at the same time I was attempting to be invulnerable.

Vulnerability is frightening for everyone. To be open about an illness that is heavily stigmatized and often dismissed as inconsequential or made up is even more terrifying. And, yet, Brené Brown’s research shows that being vulnerable is the key to living wholeheartedly and authentically. It is also a sign of tremendous strength. As she says in her talk on shame, “vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.”

Coping

The Internal Critic

There’s an internal critic in my mind, a voice that judges me for lying on the couch and being unproductive during a migraine attack. This critic is a young, healthy person who has never had a migraine. That’s right, I constantly assess myself against a standard that has never applied to me.

Like a 50-year-old who looks in the mirror and berates herself for not looking like she’s a 20-year-old runway model, I evaluate myself against an entirely unrealistic standard. No wonder I’m forever falling short. I am not young and healthy; I never have been. Yet I regularly tell myself I should act as if I were.

I’m not alone in this. I shared a version of the first paragraph of this post with a chronic migraine forum and was shocked to see how many people identified with what I wrote. Not a day passes without a migraineur in my social media sphere saying they’re a bad parent for missing a kid’s sporting event or they’re lazy for letting dishes pile up or they’re weak for not being able to get through the day of work — all because of a migraine attack.

None of these people are stuck in bed because they are self-centered or weak or lazy or attention-seekers, but because they are ill. They aren’t staying home because they don’t want to participate in life, but because they are too sick to do so. Still, they constantly question their own illness, their own bodies, and their own day-to-day experiences. As do I.

Migraineurs are often frustrated by unkind, unthinking comments from the outside world. People who have never had a migraine seem to think they know better than those who live and breath migraine. We’re told that migraine is “only a headache” and “all in our heads.” We’re told that all we have to do is eat less [blank], drink more [blank], do [blank] exercise routine, “calm down,” or abide by some other current pop culture craze and our migraines will disappear.

The voice of the internal critic that I and many other chronic migraineurs possess appears to have developed out of these and other similarly ignorant beliefs about migraine that abound in our culture. We can easily scoff when someone tells us to stick cabbage to our foreheads (yes, this was a “cure” floating around on Facebook recently), but it isn’t so easy to brush of the implied meaning behind these messages. Instead, these insidious beliefs work their way into our self-perceptions until we, too, think that we’d get better if we only tried harder, that we’re somehow to blame for our illness.

It doesn’t matter that migraineurs constantly work our butts off at maintaining a schedule, minimizing stress, eating right, finding triggers, trying treatments, etc. We work tirelessly at improving our health — much harder than most people ever have to and more than they can possibly imagine. As if we weren’t already exhausted enough by the physical experience of migraine, we focus our limited remaining resources on trying to avoid future attacks. Despite all our efforts, we still think that we need to work harder, do more.

I’ve never cared much what other people think, so you might assume it wouldn’t matter to me that society treats illness as a sign of weakness and personal failure. The problem is that I internalized these beliefs long before I even knew they existed, let alone how harmful they are. I am not struggling against an outside force, but against myself. That’s the most painful part of all.

Chronic Migraine, Coping, Friends & Family, Mental Health, Society

Migraine Beliefs

I am a faker.

If I tried harder, I wouldn’t have migraine.

It is my fault that I have migraine.

I’m only sick for sympathy or attention.

If I were a stronger or somehow better person, I wouldn’t have migraine.

I have chronic migraine because I don’t want to work (and I have specific migraine attacks because I don’t want to clean the house/go out to dinner with that person/see that movie).

I am not as sick as I act like I am.

I am lazy.

I am weak.

I am a failure.

These are the migraine-related beliefs I uncovered in therapy yesterday. Talk about a landmine. Knowing I’ve been carrying around these harmful falsehoods most of my life makes me incredibly sad.

I am sad that I learned as a child — from adults who couldn’t see my illness and so didn’t believe I was sick, from kids who called me a faker, from a family who thought pushing through illness would always overcome it, from everyone who told me “headaches” were trivial — to ignore my body, to not trust myself and how I felt. I learned that illness is wrong and shameful and that by “giving in” to illness — or even admitting how sick I feel — means I am a failure.

I am sad that I have carried these notions so long. That even after eight years of writing about migraine and being called a migraine advocate, I still hold on to them. That I absolutely know these beliefs are untrue and yet I am still invested in them.

I am sad that I am not only sick with a physical illness, but with shame and self-hatred about that illness.

I am sad for all the migraineurs who hold tight to similar beliefs about themselves. And for the friends and families of migraineurs who believe such things about their loved ones.

I am sad to live in a society that sees any admission of difficulty as weakness. That treats illness as personal (or even moral) failure. That blames the patient for not improving.

I am sad for the little girl who internalized all these messages and for the adult woman who is still haunted by them.